


boy in the walls

by moonflow



Category: The Boy (2016 Bell)
Genre: Gen, au where the backstory isnt weird, brahms just has daddy issues now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27498259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflow/pseuds/moonflow
Summary: short introspective brahms fic, cause the boy as a film has so much potential and i had to try and fix it
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	boy in the walls

Brahms lived in the walls.

It really wasn’t all that bad. He had food, appliances, entertainment, and so on. When mummy and daddy were out of the house, he could walk around to his heart’s content: play piano, eat, explore the garden outside. But he would inevitably hear the rumble of a car’s engine or see the reflection of headlights on the outside gates, and knew that he would have to return once more.

His father had given him explicit instructions when he first moved into the walls. He could remember it clear as day, and the tight hold his father had upon him at the time still lingered on the skin like a bruise that would never truly fade. The older man had been desperate, clinging to the boy and shaking him like he was his last hope on earth with his eyes as wild as the fire that had nearly taken him.

_ You musn’t let mother see you. _

It was temporary, he’d said - a word that Brahms, at that age, did not fully understand, but it had been loosely described to him as something that came to pass. He had been told that his father would “figure something out” and that he would be able to come out of the walls soon. It’s what kept him going in that small room, which at the time had nothing but an old cot and a few of his toys that they had gathered up. All he wanted was to see his mother again and explain what happened to her. He’d told daddy, of course, but the older man was always in such a rush and it never seemed like he ever registered what Brahms was saying to him. 

At the time, however, it didn’t matter. He just needed to wait. It’s what he told himself every night before crawling under the old blanket on the dingy cot that he slept on. One more day was another day closer to seeing his mother.

Then the doll came home.

Well, technically speaking, the doll itself did not. Mummy had come home with it in a rather large bag. Brahms always enjoyed watching her from behind the slits in closet doors (or from around corners when he was feeling especially bold) when she brought home packages. Even if they weren’t for him, it was fun to imagine. That excitement passed as soon as the porcelain doll that looked almost exactly like him came out of the bag his mother held. It was striking, even down to the clothes it was wearing - a picture perfect replica of what he had been wearing when he last held his mother’s hand. 

Then she’d hugged it, cried, and started calling it by  _ his _ name, which he found very odd considering that no two boys under the same roof should have the same name - especially when one of them wasn’t even a boy at all. There was no heart beating in its veins, no soul in its fragile body. It was a husk, an empty shell - almost like a corpse that smelled only slightly better. Brahms only knew this because he’d crept into its room -  _ his _ room - one evening and wanted to make absolutely sure that it wasn’t alive. Of course, it wasn’t, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to pick it up and slam it into the bedpost anyway.

He didn’t, of course. Which was good, because the night not-Brahms came home was the night his father told him that the doll was very, very important to his mother. Again, he told the boy that he would figure something out in due time and left. The phrase was uttered so many times that it had since lost meaning.

Brahms’ father seemed defeated after a point. He didn’t even bother with excuses when he came to visit his son and give him food, instead wanting to make sure he was fed and staying out of trouble. It was hard to get in trouble when there’s nobody in the walls with you to play with, Brahms had said. The man had started crying after that.

Day after day, night after night, Brahms watched from his makeshift viewpoints and haphazardly drilled peepholes as his parents treated a doll like their own son. Over time, his father had urged that his wife play the music a bit more loudly and read stories much more clearer. It would help develop his comprehension or something of the sort, he’d told her. Thankfully, it seemed to work. 

Even the grocery man was in belief that they had replaced Brahms with a doll as their son. How the boy wanted to push through the wall and touch him, tell him that he was real. He was certainly  _ not _ a stiff old doll. If anything, he wanted to thank him for the food he brought each week. 

One day, he got his opportunity. His mother was out, his father napping. When it was just daddy in the house, he had more free reign to wander about, and the grocery man had seen him. While the interaction had been awkward but pleasant, he didn’t come around anymore after that.

Daddy had said he moved.

Weeks passed. Months passed. The schedule never changed. Brahms’ mother kissed the doll goodnight each evening without fail, and oh how the boy - by then a teenager - yearned for that. While early on his father had hugged him each time they met, now he simply gave him his food, engaged in short blunt conversation, and left. He always acted scared, as if he were frightened of his own son and what he had become. Brahms’ hair had grown out and he once again was outgrowing his clothes, which he despised. Daddy had already complained about having to buy clothes before and how people would ask him about it. 

Eventually he told Brahms to just wear his old clothes that he’d kept up in the attic. 

The attic wasn’t much different from the crawlspaces in the walls, but it breathed a bit better and gave him a view to the outside. Brahms enjoyed sitting by the attic window, hugging an old worn plush to his chest and looking out at the world he desperately wanted to explore someday. Even with all the wrongs that had occurred in his life, he was still an optimistic young man. His father wouldn’t lie to him. One day he would be able to leave. One day he would talk to mummy about him, and they would be a happy family again. He just had to be patient, be quiet, and wait. 

Wait.

Wait.

_ Wait. _

* * *

They left.

He was alone in the house, but there was no fear of his mother coming home. The letter that his father had written to him explained as much. The woman who had been staying there as of yesterday was his new caretaker, and he had to take care of her in turn.

Brahms was twenty-eight years old.

The paper he held would surely have been dampened with tear stains were it not for the mask he wore over his face. A sniffle escaped him, and as always, he flinched at his own noise and quickly tried to quell it. One time when he was around twelve or so, he’d been crying, and his mother had heard him. She’d gone into a panic, and needless to say, his father had not been happy.

Gripping the paper in one fist, his free hand moved up to nudge the mask up and wipe at his eyes. Even with the burning sensation it gave one half of his face, he pushed it aside and swallowed down the urge to sob. While he had been standing, he’d since fallen back into a sitting position on his bed, the words upon the letter blurred from water in his eyes.

They weren’t coming home. Ever.

Daddy would never tell mummy about him.

He’d seen her cry on their way out, watching them walk to the car from the attic window with his father holding her by the shoulders. He hadn’t even been told why they left; just that they  _ were _ and that they were never coming home.

So what had he done wrong?

He’d done exactly as he was told. For twenty years, he had lived in the walls and made do with what he could and what he was provided with. His meager room had grown into something a bit bigger, with cutouts of books and magazines over the walls, a small personal fridge, and knicknacks he’d collected from the attic storage over the years. A photo of the three of them together was tacked to the wall next to his bed, and he found himself staring at it as he sat there with his shoulders hunched and trembling.

On instinct, he pulled his mask back down over his face despite not being done with his self-induced pity party. He’d made the old thing in his teen years, convincing himself that it would help him feel more connected to the doll that had replaced him. In turn, it would help him connect with his mother. He could imagine her hand on its face being on his instead, or her goodnight kisses upon the cold, sheer cheek now resting over his own. 

It hit him again all at once.  _ They weren’t coming home. _ Choking down another sob, he pulled his legs up and over, rolling over on the old, worn cot. He took hold of the pillow he always laid next to, arms and legs both wrapping around it as he buried its face into its “head.” He’d fashioned it ages ago out of assorted fabrics shoved into sacks he’d then haphazardly sewn together, creating the illusion of a person laying next to him. It wasn’t much, but like the mask, it was  _ something _ , and that was the best he could hope for.

Faint humming was heard on the other side of the wall, making his body lock up. Head lifting up ever so slightly from the pillow, he stared at the magazine-covered wall and listened. The melody shifted from one side of the hallway to the other, and finally it left him in silence once more. 

His parents weren’t ever coming home. They’d left him, but they hadn’t left him entirely alone. Greta seemed kind, and her smile was like sunshine peeking through the attic window on a fresh summer’s day. Her voice was different, too; unlike anything he’d ever heard on television. She must have come from far away to take care of him. Well, to take care of who she thought was him. That meant… she was good, yes?

After making sure that the humming had stopped, Brahms buried his face back into the pillow and held it tighter to his body. Eyes closing behind the mask, he quietly sniffed and took in a deep breath (which was hard with the covering over his face, but he’d since grown used to it). At that moment, he wasn’t sure what to do. But his father had left him with someone new in his life; someone who would love and care for him, and vice versa. Things would work out. They had to.

He couldn’t let anyone else leave him. 


End file.
